PIETER-DIRK UYS CV
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Pieter-Dirk Uys was born in Cape Town in
1945 and has been in the theatre since the mid-1960s. Closely associated with
both the Space Theatre in Cape Town and Johannesburg's Market Theatre during the
1970s and 1980s, he has written and performed 20 plays and over 30 revues and
one-man shows throughout South Africa and abroad.
His plays Paradise is Closing Down, Panorama, God's Forgotten,
Faces in the Wall and Just Like Home have been
performed internationally, and his one-man shows Adapt or Dye, One Man One
Volt,
You ANC Nothing Yet, Truth Omissions, Live from Boerassic Park,
Dekaffirnated,
and Foreign Aids have been presented in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany,
Holland, the USA and Canada. His performance of Foreign Aids at La Mama received
the Obie Award in New York in 2004.
Pieter-Dirk Uys was awarded South Africa's
prestigious Truth and Reconciliation Award in 2001, as well as honorary degrees
from Rhodes University (D.Litt.Hon. 1997), the University of Cape Town (D.Litt.Hon.
2003), the University of the Western Cape (D.Edu.Hon. 2003) and the University
of the Witwatersrand (D.Litt.Hon. 2004). Pieter-Dirk Uys's celebrated alter-ego,
Evita Bezuidenhout, proudly received the Living Legacy 2000 Award in San Diego,
USA.
Since 2000 Pieter-Dirk Uys has been
travelling around South Africa, visiting over 1.5 million school children, as
well as prisons and reformatories, with a free AIDS-awareness entertainment
called For Facts Sake!. He has also released a corporate AIDS-information video,
Having Sex with Pieter-Dirk Uys, as well as the family-friendly video, Survival
Aids.
His most recent success is Evita for President, which he has performed in London, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban,
and toured to the USA as Elections & Erections in 2008. In September 2008,
Evita Bezuidenhout launched her own political party, EVITA’S PEOPLE’S PARTY
(www.epp.org.za), to assist with
voter education in preparation for the 2009 General Election. Uys will also direct his new play,
Macbeki, at the Market
Theatre, Johannesburg, during the run-up to the 2009 election.
Pieter-Dirk Uys lives in Darling, where he has
converted the old railway station into a cabaret venue called EVITA SE PERRON,
famous for its satirical garden, called Boerassic Park, and the domain of Evita
Bezuidenhout, the 'most famous white woman in South Africa'. The unique
museum/nauseum of apartheid artefacts there, reflecting the madness of the past,
is arguably the only satirical exhibition of South Africa’s recent past.
www.pdu.co.za
www.evita.co.za
www.epp.org.za
(this info correct as of 6.12.2008)